Self-study
Support Audiences find a speaker more convincing if the speaker begins a speech by arguing briefly against his or her position before providing reasons for accepting it. ███ ██████ ████ █████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ █████████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ████ █████████████ █████████ ██ █████ █████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that candidates for national political office who want to succeed in winning votes should begin their speeches by briefly arguing against their own position before giving reasons why their position should in fact be accepted. This is because this technique makes the speaker look fair-minded and trustworthy, and so more convincing.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that audiences finding a political candidate more convincing will lead to success in winning votes. This assumes that audiences don't primarily vote based on other factors, like habit or loyalty to a particular party.
10.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ █████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████████ ███████████████
a
Political candidates typically ████ ██ ███████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████
If this is true, then the effectiveness of the author's suggestion is significantly limited. Even if candidates start using the author's suggested technique, the media could just publicize excerpts from later on in a speech, where candidates are just arguing for their own positions, or even from the beginning, where candidates would seem to be arguing against their actual positions. So the benefit of the author's suggestion would be lost.
b
Many people do ███ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ███████████ ███████████ █████ ███ █████████ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████████████ ███ ███████
If anything, this strengthens the author’s position. If people find politicians’ arguments one-sided, then this technique would presumably mitigate that problem.
c
People decide which █████████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████
This might actually strengthen the argument. If using the author's suggested technique makes audiences view the speaker as fair-minded and trustworthy, that's a positive character judgment that might win votes.
d
People regard a █████████ █████████ ████ █████████ ██ ████ █████ ████ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████ ███████████ ████ ███
This might also support the author’s argument, because using the technique the author recommends would then give audiences a more favorable view of political candidates.
e
Political candidates have ██ ███████ █████████ ██ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ████ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █ █████████ █████████
We know from the stimulus that this technique is generally effective in making speakers more convincing to an audience. The stimulus doesn't tell us anything about whether this technique is more or less effective for different audiences or in different settings, so we can't make assumptions either way. This doesn't weaken the argument.